One month of misery.

Blaine, Jim and Dad were opening up the silo to be able to start feeding the cows from the silo. Dad and Blaine were up inside the silo with pitch forks pushing dry moldy silage into the silo unloader, Jim was on the ground slowly cranking down the silo unloader when the crank slipped out of his hands tore open his upper arm. Ran toward house, I heard him screaming ran to meet him and put him on the ground because I wasn’t sure what was wrong I just saw blood. Before he could tell me what happened he said, “Can I still be an astronaut?” When the silo unloader fell Blaine and Dad were not under it and no one else got hurt. Jim spent the night in the hospital. Didn’t brake anything.When Jim got home from the hospital the next day Dad had Jim out on tractor cultivating corn. To teach him how Dad was standing on the cultivator as Jim drove the tractor. At the end of a row Dad told Jim to lift the cultivator which he did and Dad’s foot was riding right where the cultivator and PTO shaft barely missed each other. Dad’s toe was in the way and thus that is how Dad has 9 toes instead of 10. He was lucky it was a middle toe as this did not effect his balance.We took Dad to the emergency room at Moose Lake and the doctor who was not our regular doctor treated Dad and sew the skin on around the toe bandaged him up and sent him home with a gallon of Iodine solution to soak his foot in. Grandma Ober was down in Milltown and came up to help. She looked at his toe and said it looked ok, we had concerns about how it would heal. The next day the toe looked like it was rotting. Another trip to Moose Lake and saw Dr. Christensen (family doctor). He looked at it and called Duluth and talked to a speacialist who told Dr. Christensen to cut off the toe right below the joint, this way it could heal properly and their would be no stub, all worked out great. Dad was laid up for a while and the kids and I farmed while Dad gave directions from the couch.Grandma Silvestri then came out to help with everything. She stayed for about a month and then Grandpa came and visited and took her home. I am so grateful for the help and support of the family. Those days of Dad’s recovery would have been almost unbearable.